Say hello to your newest Red Wing

His name is Mike. He likes dogs



big hair



Willa Ford



crying



And possibly Marty Turco



which could get a little complicated next season, what with him being a Blackhawk now.

A lot of people seem to have mixed feelings about his coming to Detroit, but it's been my experience that the more sad-eyed, hockey-scarred old men the Red Wings have on the team, the further they get in the playoffs, so you can tentatively throw my name on the list of local family members, old friends, and kids who spent their afternoons at his ice rink that comprise his ready-made Detroit-area fanbase.

As WTF as we can get this week - Joe Thornton Reads Goosebumps

And that's not just speculation based on his naming his ventriloquist dummy "Slappy" as in the book from said series.

I mean, he actually reads Goosebumps, to Douglas Murray, for his bedtime story.


He also reads to Patrick Marleau.


But not to Dan Boyle, because Dan Boyle's been a bad, bad boy.


Or Nabokov, because he can read all by himself.


That's actually kind of an endearing picture. Just in case you're in danger now of warm feelings toward the San Jose Sharks, remember that they steal puppies and eat them.

That dog looks like she's been heavily drugged.

This post is the closest I can give to commentary on the series at the moment, because basically my brain gave me three choices - wax preposterously hopeful, vomit all over the internet, or do a search under "My Pictures" for "Joe Thornton" cross-referenced with "what the hell is this thing?" and post the results.

it didn't really make me feel better...

Furthermore, due to a dinner engagement (which we'll actually post about at length, along with in-depth coverage of the tinfoil hat flashmob on the stairs of the Joe) scheduled prior, both of us missed most of last night's game. So that's all I've got - St0ry Time with the San Jose Sharks.

Hopefully they're too entranced by Eric Carle's artwork in The Very Hungry Caterpillar to play very well in game four.

WTF Wednesday

Let's be honest, the Wings need to win games. You know it. I know it. The Red Wings know it. It's starting to get a little critical, and with every loss I sink a little deeper into my pool of unending stress. And I'm not going to make a list of all the areas the Wings need to improve (at the top of which would be "winning games"), because hearing "defensive coverage is lacking" and "goaltending needs improvement" and "[insert name of scapegoat du jour here] needs to break his femur and never play hockey for us again" gets old after a while.

So instead of adding in our own pseudo-analysis to the log-jam, we here at Hockeytown Static have decided to do what (sadly) we do best - strange pictures.

And nothing is stranger than Red Wing goalies (past and present) doing what they do best - weird shit.


I have to start out with an apology that Jimmy Howard hasn't really been under the scrutinizing eye of the hockey paparazzi long enough to incur any pictures on the internet (that have floated by me so far, anyway) weirder than his weird-faced headshot from 2006


unless you think it's weird to see him in an apron, serving angel-hair pasta to homeless people in Grand Rapids.



*****

What's Ty Conklin been up to since he signed with St. Louis?



No, seriously, that's Ty Conklin. It's from the Blues' charity something something casino something, so it's not really all that strange, until you consider the fact that it looks like he grew and trimmed that facial hair especially for the event.

*****

This was real, honest to god cereal you could buy in the store. Steve Yzerman had some too - I think his had marshmallows. Proceeds went to charity.



I never tasted it, but I hear that Chris Osgood's honey nut deliciousness is Sharkie-approved.



OM NOM NOM NOM NOM

*****

And finally we get to the climax, where all the pictures that came before are rendered unnecessary to the point of useless, because Dom Hasek, god bless him, could anchor a wtf Wednesday all by himself:



These are from a photoshoot for a calender in the Czech Republic promoting literacy. It stars his daughter, Dominika, as Pipi Longstocking. And Dom as her... creepy, shirtless, tattooed father.



Here's him getting his make-up applied:



I can't even bring myself to come up with a decent response to this picture, and it's been on my computer since last summer. Just... wtf?

Also, the entire team has the flu.

Tonight there's a game against Boston. I'm not sure I have much to say about it, except to note that the team needs the points (I think we're 11th place out of 15 in the conference right now. I think, if I have any grasp on the sport at all, that we need to aim for at least 8th. Right? I'm not hallucinating that, am I?) and to spend another ten pages bitching about how much I hate Versus.

Which I should really stop. Granted, there's a lot to bitch about. There's no denying that. Especially in these trying times, where, if I have to watch my team lose consistently, I want everybody on the channel I'm watching it on, from the regional producers down to the lowliest interns to at least pretend to be ragingly unfair, completely biased homers. It just makes it easier when you feel like the color guy might be hurting right along with you.

But I feel like I've been too hard on Versus in the past. At least they're trying. At least they're a nationally broadcast cable network in the States airing hockey games across the country on a regular basis. Sure, they're not perfect. Sure, their commentators don't always kiss the ground that Ken Holland walks on like I think they should. Sure, Brian Engblom's hair looks like he scalped MacGyver and then decided to wear his mullet as a trophy headpiece but MacGyver's head was a little smaller than his so the mullet didn't quite fit right so he had to put it on little mullet stilts on his head so it would stay there*.

(*MacGyver's mullet wouldn't stay there. MacGyver's mullet would steal three paperclips and Kieth Jone's pen and use them to escape.)

But at least they're not NBC, who forbids teams from holding playoff viewing parties, makes us spend every intermission hoping Mike Milbury will finally just kick Pierre MaGuire's ass but he never does, and has a disconcerting anti-Swede bias, which I wouldn't even mind if my team didn't have more Swedes than Ikea had chairs, but it does, so I do mind, quite a bit.


I'm sorry, I'm sitting here rationalizing the legitimacy of the existence of Versus, where I should be doing my job - which is making myself feel better about a potential loss tonight by making fun of the Boston Bruins.

Sadly, all I have to give you is this video of some bears playing hockey:



I don't remember if we'd already posted this. Aside from the obvious ethical PETA/ASPCA questions I have... I just want to know how much fish paste and tranquilizer you have to use to teach bears to skate.

Probably more fish paste than it took to get Zdeno Chara to strip naked in front of a camera. (Don't worry, it's... tastefully... posed...) The good news about that picture is that if it struck you blind, you don't have to see Brian Engblom's hair at all tonight. Awesome!

Happy Halloween!

Wouldn't that be perfect if we were playing the BJs tonight? Unfortunately, I don't have any Flames in costume, and the only Red Wings-related Halloween picture I can find is wildly inappropriate:


Since, as we just found out, Valtteri Filppula's pimpin' hand ain't strong.

And that's where we stand, before a team that's not afraid of blood, already injury-ravaged, desperately, desperately in need of a win.

I mean it's starting to get ridiculous. I know Babcock's been saying that regardless of the record, this team's been playing better than the blowing-through-the-league teams of th elast couple years, but is that any consolations? Isn't it the most cliched-yet-true saying in all of hockey - good teams find ways to win? I know it's only the end of October, but right now the Wings have not-won more games than they have won, and I'm kind of expecting to see people start to leap from the bandwagon as though it had been set aflame.

Speaking of which, I know what the Red Wings can go as for Halloween.

Let's put down some Flames.

By the numbers: 7 reasons why my life is sad, and 3 foolish Swedes

I am in a thorough state of depression right now:

1. The Tigers. Enough said.
2. The Colorado Avalanche currently have a better record than the Red Wings. Hell, practically the entire League has a better record than Detroit.
3. I can't watch the game on Thursday. I can't even listen to Ken Kal. Grrr.
4. I was the only person in my Geology class who knew that Detroit was on the Detroit River. Four people thought Toronto was the city on the other side of the river.
5. Yesterday I had a dream that Nick Lidstrom signed a 6 year contract extension. I was not happy when I snapped back to the "maybe two more years if he's really feeling awesome" reality of consciousness.
6. Bob Probert got booted of Battle of the Blades before Skank Prime.
7. Last night I found a video about Vladdie that while sort of happy, still was ridiculously sad.

While you all either laugh at me because my life is pathetic, or cry because you feel the same as me, some things in the world aren't quite as depressing.

Take Swedish advertising for example:


If Homer is happy, then so am I. The company this is from sells either crackers or ski equipment, I'm not sure. Do they have your favorite?

Thursday randoms

A lot has happened today. The Red Wings sent seven players to the Griffins, Nicklas Lidstrom was named the best NHL player of the decade, I learned how to swear in Russian, Wayne Gretzky left the Coyotes, and Brad May got a Red Wings try-out.

Griffins first-
Travis Ehrhardt, Sergei Kolosov, Sebastien Piche, Jamie Tardif, Tomas Tatar, Francis Lemieux, and John Vigilante were all released from Detroit and rejoined Grand Rapids for their first practice Monday.

Also the Griffins are having fans pick another bobble head. Your options are:

- Head Coach Curt Fraser (bobble fists)
- Broadcaster Bob Kaser
- center Darren Helm
- goaltender Daniel Larsson
- Duke (Zamboni bobblehead)

Go vote. Trisha wants the Zamboni driver, but she's always had a strange fixation on Zambonis. I'm hoping for bobble fists. It just sounds silly.



And with that as our segue...

CBC's Battle of the Blades starts October 4th, and I'm pumped even though I won't be able to watch it. I will say that I'm a little worried, though, because if skanky Claude Lemieux (honestly the last person I'd ever want to see in spandex) lasts longer in the competition than Bob Probert, I might cry (unless it's because Skank Prime is actually a great figure skater, and then I'll just laugh, and imagine him going out for coffee with Johnny Weir).

Just in case you've been living under a rock, the US Olympic team had a photoshoot. Patrick Kane got violent.


Look out cab drivers of the world - this man has an icicle.

Odds and ends

We haven't updated in a while. It's not necissarily that news has been slow, it's that what news there is seems to either be focused on speculation over whether Patrick Kane actually beat up some guy over twenty cents, or forum arguments about whether the Red Wings Todd Bertuzzi experiement is really worth repeating (I'm willing to see how it plays out before I cast any judgement).

I heard from a friend of a friend that a blog was reporting that Elliot Friedman said that Aaron Downey's going to see if he can't be a Coyote next season, and you know what? - I'm pulling for him. I'll sure as hell miss him (so will an awful lot of Griffins fans), but it'd be good to see him back in a regular/semi-regular NHL lineup.

Puck Daddy posted an article about the new US Olympic men's ice hockey jerseys like... a week ago, but if you haven't already read it, it discusses this image, which I guess will be on the sleeves or something... I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I'm not exactly sure if it resonates any kind of patriotic vibe for me (and I can't get over thinking that thing at the top looks sort of like a swastika), but then again, the stories in the symbolism are kind of neat, and it's not like it's the ugliest thing the United States has ever used to represent itself.

The US's orientation camp this week, which from what I can gather, involved an awful lot of press releases, playing with small children, signing autographs, and taking embarrassing yearbook pictures in front of a varied set of studio backgrounds. I'm not sure whether my favorite is Old Glory, or Dramatically lit frosted glass blocks, which, I'm not gonna lie, sort of reminds me of the bathrooms at Van Andel Arena.

But you have to agree that Brian Rafalski is totally working it in that picture.

Oh, summer....

Happy August, everyone. Ewww, August. I'm sure that by this point of the summer you all are just about ready to jump off a bridge becuase you're sick of being stuck with news stories about Alex Ovechkin's odd pre-game ritual and just want real hockey to start again. I know I am.

But luckily we have plenty of other ridiculous Red Wings related news to keep us busy. From the looks of it, Nick Lidstrom will be named captain of Team Sweden, and the roster will be once again filled with the rest of the Detroit Red Wings. They had their pre-Olympic gathering a few days ago, featuring tiny sandwiches, cult-like outfits, and Henrik Zetterberg's new haircut.

Like half the team got married this week, too. Jimmy Howard was practically forbidden from going on a honeymoon this summer by Ken Holland because it would have been too close to training camp, and Johan Franzen's wedding had to be delayed because Hank and Emma were late.

I am unable to confirm if this was because Hank was held up at the barber, but that's this blog's official speculation, mostly because the only other thing we have to speculate about is which two free agents Ken Holland's about to pull out of his ass.

This is not the lame summer-boringness I had intended for our 100th post

Lindsay and I don’t do so well during the off-season. It’s not that our lives stop without hockey as much as it is that the ways in which we try to trick our minds into thinking that hockey is still there occasionally interferes with our daily lives, if not our sanity.

Which is the only explanation I can give as to why I paid to see The Love Guru in theatres twice last summer.

We’re keeping busy when we can, looking for jobs (and looking, and looking, and looking…), getting sunburned, watching the Tigers (Marian Hossa dug a deep, deep hole in my heart last season, and Placido Polanco is filling it with delicious free roast beef)…

But among these normal and relatively mentally healthy activities, we’ve also been lamenting off-season moves, giggling at prospects who don’t know English very well yet, speculating about whether Sidney Crosby has a teddy bear, and, even though it’s only been out for a day, already finding reasons to bitch about next season’s schedule.

And I secretly get excited every time I hear one of Ken Daniels’ Brighthouse cable commercials.

I know that the Red Wings have the shortest off-season in the NHL this year, and hockey-related things have been happening all over the place, but I feel like I’ve just spent the last year in a strange place where no one cares about hockey and no one probably ever will.

I suddenly feel sorry for all four legitimate Nashville fans, because that’s their reality, and I’m only imagining I’m there because I’ve gone delirious from the heat. And the fact that our landline is down at the moment, so I’m posting this from a Starbucks. Being on dial-up is one thing, but whose phone line dies if they’re not in a blizzard or about to be murdered?

And I still have no idea what the crap is going on with Jiri Hudler.

But I’m not even sure if Jiri Hudler knows what’s going on with Jiri Hudler.

WTF Wednesday

I don't really know if anything catastrophic is going on in the hockey world at the moment. Part of me feels bad that this blog has been slacking in the news department lately, but frankly, if this was your main source of news to begin with, there's something wrong with you.

But while we may not be journalistically committed to providing the hard-hitting, breaking news stories of the hockey world, we do have an awful lot of hockey cards.

Really, really, mind-blowingly, what-the-crap-were-they-smoking-in-the-idea-room hockey cards.

This time, they were smoking something that made them wonder what would happen to hockey if the Borg Collective ran the NHL.

Cyborg Stevie here is part of the 96-97 Metal Universe series put out by Fleer. The scan does not do it justice. The laser shooting out of his bionic eye-piece is holographic.

I don't know. If I could have fit Steve Yzerman with robotic implants, I would have gone for the knee.



This one isn't much better...


...Who comes up with these things?

WTF Wednesday is a little late...

But it's here!

Umm...



One more win and we're done watching the BJs.

(Also, what is Kelly Hrudey doing on Twitter? Next thing we know Don Cherry will have a facebook...)

Jason Arnott had a wet and wild night

No, really. That's Jason Arnott.

It seemed like his was the only name Ken mentioned. If nothing else, that meant that at least I didn't have to spend the entire game hearing about Jordan Tootoo. But it also meant that by the time he skated out to take the shootout, it felt like he was destined to score. I spend another night watching the number on my kitchen whiteboard not go up. Lindsay curses Ken Daniels for jinxing the game with his talk of numbers.

It wasn't like it was sixty minutes of pure awfulness, either. There was a lot of good hockey played tonight, against a desperate team. Some defensive idiocy as well, yeah, but up until the end, a lot of good hockey.

And all I'm going to remember is how the Red Wings blew another 2 goal lead. Ugh, how frustrating.

I fricking hate Nashville.

WTF Wednesday- Nikolai Khabibulin looks like other people (and chases Norwegians with a wrench?)

Well, he does. In honor of the Wings playing Chicago every other day for the rest of the season, here he is.

He makes one face while he's in net, and it's the same face every time.





"Arg..."

Here's what he does on weekends?



(make sure you at least skip ahead to the 2 minute mark)

Alright, Evgeni Plushenko a bit of a stretch, but imagine turning on your television at three in the morning only to find this creep who looks like an NHL goalie licking his hand. Because I did. It haunts me still.

And this one is dead on. I cannot have been the only one who noticed this:




Tomorrow's game is against Nashville. What kind of sick joke is this schedule?

And the big news of the day, I guess -

Chris Osgood is the playoff starter. Definitely.

Probably.

Well, Babcock's "pretty sure," anyway.

...

I'm a little worried about the playoffs.

Ok, I'm a lot worried about the playoffs. And it's not because of Chris Osgood and The Craptastic Season of Why Did You Let That Puck In.

It's not because I don't think the Red Wings can do it, either. They most certainly can. They have the talent. They have the experience. Even with the hangover, they probably still have most of the drive. But will they? That's the question.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but this season it felt like the Wings rarely lived up to full potential. They played some good hockey, and had some awesome games, and with where they are in the standings, I have no right to complain in front of the fans of most other teams - but the whole time it seemed like something was failing to click.

They remind me of those kids in high school who coasted through doing the bare minimum and graduated with a B- average - a good grade, good enough to get into the colleges they wanted to, but they could have been valedictorian if they'd only taken notes and done their math homework.

To put it another way, this season, the Wings were like the following picture:


Yes, there are some awesome things in that picture, but taken as a whole... it doesn't make any goddamned sense.

I really hope that sometime during the next week, the Red Wings start to make sense. Because even though I made it, that picture is starting to creep me the hell out.

The organization will provide

I was fully prepared to scrap WTF Wednesday this week, because I had nothing worth your time, and it was April Fool's day anyway, so even if I had something, none of you would believe me. Then, at zero-hour, the following was brought to my attention:

No, the Red Wings aren't putting on a production of Fiddler on the Roof (but god, what I'd spend to go see that). They're promoting their 2009 playoff slogan, which, in case you haven't heard yet, is "The Beard is Back."

Have you guys seen this yet? I have never seen so many rich people so reluctant to do something in my life.



You can vote for your favorite playoff beard here. I'm rooting for Kris Draper, because his beard actually scored a goal in the conference finals. What has your beard done lately?

...

Yeah. That's what I thought.

Game Day Update

Wings-Flames 7pm FSN (...or FSDetroit or FSRedWings or whatever they're calling it this week.)


Hossa is still out, but hopefully will be back Saturday against the Blues. Tonight will be Homer's 800th game and Cleary's 600th. There's not really much else to say about this game, unless you want to delve into my "Why I Hate the Calgary Flames" speech, which is quite long, not really validated, and boring. Mostly it involves this incident (and that entire playoff series), and includes my aspiration of meeting Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla in an elevator so I can kick him in the shin to get rid of all my anger built up around this team. (It wouldn't be a particularly hard kick, or be directed so much at him as it would be at the sluts on the team he leads, but it would make me feel better.) That will never happen, so I just go back to seething internally.

On top of all this, Dion Phaneuf is a slut. Not quite a skank, but definitely a slut. I mean, just look at him:



I rest my case.

While you wait for the game to start go have a laugh at the expense of the Nashville Predators.

Go Wings.

So much for my denial-based sense of zen-like calm

I was back in Livonia this weekend, doing French homework (did you know that in French, "le mieux" tacked on to the end of a phrase means "the best"? Guess who's last name is no longer used in my household), and braving my parents' dial-up internet connection (I know) for one of my favorite parts of the All-Star festivities - AWKWARD STYLIZED PHOTOSHOOT PORTRAITS!! Last year we were treated to The Throne:

*insert Masterpiece Theatre theme here*

This year? Disembodied heads emerging from the void:

Nice hair, Stamkos

I'm not sure I want to imagine how creeptastic Datsyuk would have looked in this.

Which brings me to my actual topic - the ASG dropout suspension. I haven't really read anyone else's opinion on this. I probably won't. I'm trying to maintain my denial-based sense of zen-like calm surrounding the entire issue. This is how I get through finals week coinciding with the playoffs. But I digress...

If Sidney Crosby wants to show up to the All Star game broken to have his picture taken and reinforce his role as head tool of the NHL media, more power to him. But keep in mind that unless he's living a secret double-life, there's something Pavel and Nick both have that he lacks.

No, the answer is not "mad skillz", nor is it "Stanley Cup rings", although I'm thinking a lot of people reading this might try to argue one or both.

I'm not BFFs with any of the Red Wings, and for all I know, the whole team spent the all star break doing drugs with hookers in Bermuda - but between the two of them, Nick and Pavel have two wives and five children - families, families who don't get to see them everyday because they spend a third of the season in another time zone. The fact that Crosby lives the sad, isolated life of the deified superstar shouldn't really be held against the Red Wings.

So, Gary, if you want to punish two of the best players in the league for preferring to spend time with their kids rather than showing up to your media circus to get their toenails painted up in the Bell Centre press box with Sidney Crosby and his dad, I guess that's your prerogative.

Since Columbus isn't fast approaching us in the division, ahead of us in the league, historically apt to break our players' faces, or going to stir up bad memories of playoff series past (nor have they been beating us this season), there's no real sense of honor at stake in this game. Only 2 points - 2 points I'm not crazy about having to watch my team struggle so hard for - but 2 points I daresay the Red Wings can, just this once, afford to lose, should they lose them. I'll be ok with this game. But the principles involved still make me more than a little outraged.

Have fun with your power-trip, Gary. I hope it makes you feel as tall as you thought it would. Just be careful - if you do, in fact, manage to successfully run the league into the ground, you'll have to find some other way to get that giddy, all-powerful feeling you get when you screw over the Red Wings.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash again. It's been a whole day since I agreed with Pierre McGuire, but I still feel unclean.